A fake Ferrari that erupted into flames Friday night in a small community 4 km south of Lions Bay, could have destroyed all the homes in the area, fire officials say. The unincorporated town has no fire fighting service and an inadequate water supply.Mark van Manen
/ PNG

A fake Ferrari that erupted into flames Friday night in a small community 4 km south of Lions Bay, could have destroyed all the homes in the area, fire officials say. The unincorporated town has no fire fighting service and an inadequate water supply.Mark van Manen
/ PNG

A fake Ferrari that erupted into flames Friday night in a small community 4 km south of Lions Bay, could have destroyed all the homes in the area, fire officials say. The unincorporated town has no fire fighting service and an inadequate water supply.Mark van Manen
/ PNG

VANCOUVER -- A wannabe Ferrari that erupted into flames could easily have caused the downfall of a waterfront community near Lions Bay Friday, say fire officials.

Late Friday, Lions Bay Fire Chief Andrew Oliver got a call that a Ferrari had caught fire in a residential garage in Strachan Point, an unincorporated community about 30 kilometres north of Vancouver. But when firefighters got to the home, not only did they fail to find a supercar, they couldn’t find enough water to stop the blaze from spreading.

“The guy said it was a Ferrari, but it was a kit car,” said Oliver. “A poor man’s Ferrari ... he didn’t even have the big engine in it either.”

The dressed-up, two-door, four-cylinder Pontiac Fiero had seemingly gone up while its battery was being charged, Oliver said. The flames then spread to an (ostensibly authentic) Audi TT parked next to it and developed into a fully-involved fire within minutes of the call coming in.

The blaze would not have been particularly troubling were the home located in another community. But not only were firefighters not obliged to respond because Strachan Point doesn’t pay for municipal services, when crews began fighting the flames they realized they were dealing with a local water system that was shockingly inadequate.

“We thought we had it and then we (ran) out of water,” said Oliver.

He said the community has a small water supply connected to one-and-a-half inch diameter standpipes. Firefighters can connect to the equipment, but modern engines are typically fed by four or five-inch pipes that carry a far greater volume of water at a minimum of 500 gallons per minute.

“We were getting 25,” said Oliver.

The fire engines went through the 2,000 gallons of water they hauled in with them, and sucked the community’s estimated 8,000 gallon tank dry in no time, he said. Then crews fell back to pumping salt water onto the fire directly from the ocean.

The community of about 15 homes was completely unprepared for a fire, said Oliver, and eventually the firefighters realized they could not save the burning house. They told residents all they could do was try to stop the real danger that the fire could spread through the community.

Officials called in a fire boat from Vancouver and the crew braved dense fog to travel from the Burrard Inlet to Strachan Point.

“It was like pea soup Friday night and Saturday,” said Oliver. “They had gone underneath the Lion’s Gate Bridge and they couldn’t even see it.”

With help on the way, crews started fireproofing the surrounding homes. Their efforts paid off and by daybreak firefighters from three municipalities had put out the flames.

“When we left in the morning after getting this fire out, (residents) didn’t have enough water to brush their teeth,” said Oliver.

“They’ve got their head in the sand — they’ve been told they’ve got an issue,” he said, adding that fire officials had warned members of the community as far back as the 1990s that their water system was inadequate.

“You’ve got half a community that want to address it and half a community that don’t,” he said. “The guys with the biggest voices ... are being heard.”

Oliver said it’s a problem that also affects neighbouring communities. When engines from one municipality are called out to help fight a fire in another area, their halls need to be helped out by engines from yet another community, and so on.

“They were lucky we came,” he said.

The cost of the firefighting service — estimated to be in the tens of thousands — will be the responsibility of the owner of the home where the Faux-rrari was parked and possibly other residents.

The three bedroom, three bathroom home was on the market for an asking price of $1,850,000.

Lion’s Bay officials could not be reached to discuss whether Strachan Point residents have approached the municipality about extending services to their community.

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